Vacaville's Nut Tree complex sold to Dallas-based firm

The Nut Tree complex has been sold again, this time to Dunhill Partners, a Dallas-based commercial real estate brokerage and investment firm that owns more than 30 shopping centers, most of them in Texas.

Completed Friday, terms of the sale were not disclosed. William Hutchinson, Dunhill's owner and founder, could not be reached for comment at press time.

Ric Capretta, a partner of Westrust, which bought the property from Snell & Co. in 2009, also could not be reached at press time.

Hutchinson's brother, Mark, owner of Dunhill Partners West, which has offices on Market Street in San Francisco, confirmed the sale, calling it "a great opportunity and a very exciting retail shopping center with an exciting future with all the things going on in Vacaville."

He cited plans to build a new Jimmy Doolittle Air & Space Museum near the complex "and the overall growth of the I-80 corridor" in the area as strong selling points.

Hutchinson introduced his brother to the East Monte Vista Avenue property -- home to major stores such as Best Buy, Sports Chalet and Old Navy, and restaurants such as Fentons Creamery, Buffalo Wild Wings and Rubio's -- and they envisioned its potential.

"I encouraged him and thought it was a great opportunity for us to work together," he added.

Dunhill will acquire the property in phases, Hutchinson noted. The first includes the purchase of the major stores, with a second phase of leases and sales still in the works, he said.

But Westrust did not sell several parcels that front East Monte Vista, bordering Interstate 80, he said, adding, "They kept that portion. They're going to be building that up themselves."

City Manager Laura Kuhn did not know any details about the sale, but said Dunhill's plans were "to be hands-on in their management" style.

City Councilwoman Dilenna Harris called the sale "a great deal for Ric Capretta."

"He put a lot into preparing for this day," she said.

Adding that the sale "will be great for Vacaville," Harris said Dunhill has plans "to unveil some exciting things," but she was unsure what they might be.

She said current General Manager Margo Foster, who also could not be reached Friday, was expected to remain in her job.

"I think it's going to be a smooth transition, one owner to another," she said. "Over the next few months, (Dunhill) has got some surprises for us, but they're being pretty tight-lipped about it."

There was no word about the fate of the historic Harbison House, which was built in 1907 and is owned by the Vacaville Museum, and the piece of land on which it rests. To the rear of a breezeway next to Fentons, that parcel was not part of Friday's sale, because the property, called Nut Tree Park, is owned by the city of Vacaville. The city is technically the "successor agency" to its now-defunct Housing and Redevelopment Agency, which ended, as did all of California's RDAs earlier this year, when Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature dissolved them amid a deepening budget crisis, seizing control of billions of dollars in property taxes previously managed by cities.

Shawn Lum, the museum's executive director, said the museum "has a lease with Housing and Redevelopment to be on that property," but noted that, with the dissolution of RDAs, "We're in a level of purgatory, if that's what you want to call it."

"The house still has a lot of potential," she said. "We'll figure out how to create a future for the Harbison House."

There was also no word yesterday about what might happen to Nut Tree Plaza, which boasts the original Nut Tree miniature train, an old-fashioned carousel and benches for the public, among other things.

Over the years, the plaza has been home to a short-lived farmers market and the Vacaville Jazz Festival, held annually in September. Several years ago, it attracted Wynton Marsalis, the internationally known jazz trumpet virtuoso, composer and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, who pulled off I-80 to jam with some local high school students and other musicians.